Fabrication of the battery compartment cover that will hold each radio.  An extra spot of super glue (connecting yellow radio body with black radio side) will make a lot more work of redoing the earphone jack circuit as two of the four audio jack connections on the circuit board must be connected via another switch.  This will enable the sound out to the speaker or audio out to an amp (or both?) without ever disconnecting the plug from the jack. 

There is still hope.  A camera was lost with the pictures that were going to be used for the promised postings below, of course they only exist in that camera.  The plastic earphone jack of the radios is turning out to be too fragile to be a reliable switch between radio-speaker sound or output to amplifier sound so some redesign and possible new parts are afoot there.  The simple out is to not use the speakers at all but then you have half an F.R.O. The goal of finishing it by the end of the year seemed promising a couple of months ago but life is complicated.  Its still a goal: lofty but very present. 

The gist.

Click image for larger size.

It's happening

Much has happened in the last 5 years since this project was begun, not much of it having to to with the actual project...UNTIL NOW. Since the first of the year there has been much activity soon to be chronicled here. the initial concept is intact and is taking form in a 2ft by 4ft by 9inch box that will sit on top of the organ. The first radio was mounted yesterday, as many as 10 of the radios have been fired up at once which was a distraction that took a month to get over. I love the sound of AM radio noise.

the equipment pt.1

The fabulous "Outdoor" by Innovage; the mysterious international pyramid scheme. Note the 'LED Torch' (switch labeling).


















THE FUNMAKER SPRITE IN PERSON PRIOR TO OPEN HEART SURGERY.

8/22/06

HELLO. We are here to chronicle the modification of a Wurlitzer Funmaker sprite electronic organ donated for the task by one of my favorite Seattle composers. The job has expanded because the donor said it didn't work but it DOES so I can't just wade in and do major surgery for fear of damaging the existing electronics. It's 70s vintage beatbox plays 5 rhythms: simultaneously if you press all of the buttons!



Our composer had the idea of a keyboard that plays AM radios and having long been an aficionado of AM radio noise and being handy with a soldering iron his idea is now coming to fruition although who knows how long it will take in this overheated environment. It started happening because our conversation stuck and because of the appearance of a suitable radio. In my little mind portable AM radios using tuning capacitors were plentiful but that was back in my youth (don't feed the dinosaurs!). As I looked around I found that most of the new ones, which aren't as plentiful as they used to be, use digital tuning methods and high noise floors that kill noise, crosstalk, and heterodyning (that familiar radio squeal of a weak or poorly tuned in station). Then a local drugstore chain started a sale: the bright yellow Innovage Outdoor model replete with "LED Torch" 2/$10; which must be an attempt to use up a bunch of old parts because it not only does it have a tuning capacitor said cap can actually be adjusted with a small screwdriver from the back of the unit! It's NOISY. FM and wb are good too because I'm guessing many venues will suck for AM.



Each Funmaker Sprite key will play it's own am/fm/wb radio that will be mounted somehow above the console (in back of the area where sheet music would be) so that the torch on each radio will be visible and the radio adjustable when a key is pressed. This keeps the Wurlitzer furniture concept alive too: its own 8" speakers face the player. The radios will be playable through their own speakers or via a 38 input stereo mixer (37 keys and an input for the original wurlitzer sounds). Since the cabling got too hairy (for my limited skills anyway) to allow some sort of movable panel to move the radios around current plan is to compromise with a row of stereo balance controls, 1 per radio. It will be wired so that a PLC (programmable controller) can be easily added later. I have all of the radios, and am breadboarding the mixer. Got the needed keyboard additions almost finished. I'm pretty excited about it. Will post some pictures soon. The idea of composing for an essentially uncontrollable instrument is as good as it gets for me on the 'what's the point of life' meter; and I'm looking forward to great things from at least two of my favorite Seattle composers. As a music scholar based in England puts it: "Oh my God!! That may be the best idea a human being has ever had. (Well, since combining peanut butter with chocolate anyway.)". I think he's right and at long last all of this technical education and experience of mine can be put to some good uselessness.



This blog will be a solicitation for feedback and an attempt to unbury those in my immediate vicinity from the details I am prone to lavish upon them. Works in progress in a mad world. Has it always been so messed up?